VOTE FOR ME ~ KEEP ME ON TOP ~ I’M A TOP MOMMA ~

Click the Button to Keep Me On Top!

“When the walls came tumbling down
When the walls came tumbling down
When the walls came tumbling down
Everybody ran as they screamed at the sound’… Def Leppard

More titillating tidbits on my WAHM Affiliate Marketing experience!

Today I resigned from all but maybe two, of the small WAHM companies I belonged to as an Independent Consultant for Affiliate Marketing.

That’s it, I’m done, I’ve heard, seen and had enough of it.

I got an e-mail today from a company I was a rep for ~ Beautiful Diva.

The email indicated that affiliate links would no longer take a customer directly to your shopping cart, but rather a “landing/splash” page.  The customer would then have the option to search for a representative by entering their zip code, name or other methods.

WTH?  I’m going to put up a banner link to a site ~ have a potential customer click through to it ~ and then have that potential customer enter their zip code to find a different rep?

Who are they going to search for under “name” ~ Moomettesgram?  My full name used to be displayed before they did a U-Turn on their marketing tactics.

I don’t think so.  Down came that banner and ~ exit, stage left.  No more rep for that company.

My advice to anyone who’s thinking of becoming an Affiliate Rep, is this:

Before you sign up with a new WAHM company, check to see where your customer is going to land.  Otherwise - all you’re going to be doing is putting up a banner for the company gratis, and you won’t see any sales.

How many of my readers know what my zip code is?  I speak often of living in New England ~ Connecticut specifically ~ but I don’t think anyone is going to find me through that method.

If you blog and use banners, do all your readers know what state you live in?  Do you use your real name, or a by-line?

Really, young ones, think this one through.  Don’t just blindly do everything these companies ask you to do.  You are going to be taken for a ride if you do.

Another reason I’ve left several companies is that many are signed up with JROX.  One particular company made their reps sign up at least 3 times for a new JROX affiliate ID.  Talk about confusion.  No sales there ~ the website was down ~ the affiliate IDs didn’t work~ excuses, excuses.  I’m outta there.

Nope.  The only companies I’m with now are basically through big-name affiliate sites.  I’ll stick with those for awhile, and see how it goes.

No more small potatoes.

If anyone has any other experiences and you find you’re rolling in dough, speak up, and add yourself as a subscriber if you’d like to hear my continuing saga!

“Cruella De Vil, Cruella De Vil.

If she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will…“

Well, well, well. As a follow-up to my post forewarning my young, nubile readers who are eager to enter the cut-throat world of work-at-home mom online ecommerce entrepreneurship, I am again chronicling my experiences.  As a Baby Boomer, I’m a little thicker-skinned than some of you younger moms.  But listen-up to Gram here ~keep up your guard and keep your ears & eyes wide open.

I’ll cut to the chase early.  One of my businesses got skinned alive by Cruella Hosting Services.

Read between the lines here.

For those who want to continue reading, this may get lengthy. But it’s interesting, so take a chance.

Continuing my experiences in the Hell Hall world of a WAHM, I posted here about all the e-mails I got to sign up for early renewals of this, that and every other thing. I canceled my annual subscription to Cruella’s hosting and design service that my business was on since it was scheduled for  ‘auto renewal’ through Paypal. I wanted to make sure this site didn’t charge me again because I was going to use the affiliate links provided through the respective companies, rather than having them all on a mini web site that I had created.

Coincidentally, at the same time, I contacted Cruella Hosting Service to ask for a URL redirect for one of my banners. Days went by, and I heard nothing. Surprise Surprise.

I fired off emails to every address I had from Cruella Hosting Service. This WAHM Dame Houdini has more email aliases than a Moose has Ticks at any given time (per recent news articles, that is about 35K).

I finally got one response today, and I am providing a synopsis of the flimsy excuses here:

…you have a yahoo email and some reason on Julie’s server I am not able to write to people with yahoo. I am not sure why. You need not be immature and treat people with respect if you want to get anywhere in business. I don’t take demands. I must of not got your email request. I removed you from my server you need to find another host. I hold the right to refuse service to anyone who acts in a bad or disruptive matter.

…I am sorry I don’t take demands. Your site is being removed. No one demands me to do something.

Just for your information I didn’t ask for money I offered early renewal for discount rate. You no longer need that…

I told you you were removed from our services. You don’t demand your host and designer to do something imediately. I never got your update email. I have a form everyone fills out for updates. I have a forum for people to get the updated info. You don’t go tell your host to do the work imediately specially when I do free updates. You never paid me to work imediately. Updates are sometimes on tuesdays but mainly 1st and 15th. The form makes sure i get the updates. You will need to find you a new host. You can’t go back to Julie because you left her services. You probably owe her money. (proviso, NOT.) I am not sure. We are on the same server so you left Julie to stay on the same server. Respect is demanded with my services.

sorry for the small amount I charge I offer no refunds.

Judy

Keep in mind that Cruella has the audacity to blame me for being impatient because she didn’t respond to my numerous requests for the redirect. I filed off a grievance to Paypal for services not received, although I don’t believe I’ll see any relief.

Here’s my response:

Your excuse is ridiculous about my using a Yahoo email address.

You have more than 3 email addresses I have been writing to.

There’s this one, there’s xxx
There’s the one that payment was sent to on Paypal, there’s the one that’s listed on Paypal
There’s also xxx
I had written to them all, and never heard back from you. I requested the URL redirect quite some time ago, which more than covered your day of the week that you work to make the requested changes. It’s easy for you to use the excuse that you never got an email. I don’t buy that.

And you have the audacity to blame me because you’re not performing up to snuff, and I am the paying customer. And what does bringing up that other person you referred to have to do with our business transaction? Squat.

Not to worry. I have a WAHM tips blog.

No loss on my part.

Some people are just so shady and slick, and operate their market place mama businesses like flea or tick central dot info hell halls.

If you want the down and dirty of it all, just let me know.

Update: And then for some strange reason, after this post went to press, with no warning, I got kicked out of The Mom Pack tonight. No emails, no nothing, just no access.  Coincidence? Technical hiccup?   Gossip Wag?  Wicked Stepsisters from Mom Pack?

What do you think?

My In Box is overflowing!  Recent emails that I’ve received must be a sign of the times.

I have received so many emails from the various work-at-home mom advertising sites that I’m signed up for.  All of them have been offering best buy specials gimmicks.

“Renew early - sign up for “lifetime placement” and lock in for a one-time rate!

Most of these advertising sites are from mom-owned WAHM businesses.

Yes, I do like to support other mom-owned businesses.  However, I caution you in falling for this common sales pitch tactic.

What I believe is happening, is that these people are in a pinch, and are trying to earn some extra fast cash.

Before you sign up for a renewal, ask yourself some questions:

• **Will your own site be around next year or for a lifetime?  Is it working for you?  Do you think you’ll want to continue with your direct sales or affiliate company/ecommerce site/product?  Is your product flying off the shelf so fast that you need a ‘lifetime’ rate?

• **Will the site you’re going to advertise on be around next year, or for a lifetime?  What is their refund policy should they fold, or should you decide to discontinue your affiliation/shop/product?  If they’re so successful, why are they trying to raise cash now?  That’s what they’re really trying to do.  If they include comments such as “our site is growing by leaps and bounds” ~ they it’s ‘Buyer Beware.”
  

• **Have you checked your statistics to see if this particular advertiser is generating enough traffic for you to renew, especially for a lifetime?

As I keep stressing, read between the lines.  Don’t fall for any sales pitch and part with your hard-earned money that isn’t going to be profitable for you.  It may sound enticing, but I still think it’s a sign of a tough economy.

Recently I’ve been exploring different ways to try to get my blog to work for me. While I enjoy blogging and the many friendships I’ve made through blogging, I enjoy eating and paying my bills, too.

I enjoy the aspects of sharing the business knowledge I’ve developed over the years through my job as a Paralegal Virtual Assistant as well as writing about my journey and venture into the realm of e-commerce.

I’ve built on this insight through each Work-At-Home Forum that I’ve joined and belong to, as well as through the many blogging communities I belong to, and friends that I’ve met along the way.

One of the ways that I’m thinking of promoting my boutique online business, Moomette’s Magnificents Olde Towne Shoppes is through ppc advertising.

Pay Per Click Advertising will allow me to connect my business with the customers looking for my products and/or services. This process is a one-stop website promotion solution for small businesses such as mine. NetworkSolutions researches keywords, analyzes your website, creates ad copy, purchases keywords and reports on your campaign. There is the ability to choose from two affordable, fully managed performance click advertising plans, based on your needs. New options include customized landing pages and local business ads.

Look into NetworkSolutions for your business needs! Affordable monthly plans start as low as $125 per month, plus a one-time setup fee.

I like my Rib-Eye steaks rare. I’ll be heading to the butcher’s in the morning! Yum!

You may have noticed a bit of a change in my design layout. I’m doing a little administrative housecleaning.

In an effort to make my pages load quicker for my Entrecard Droppers and readers, I’ve moved some things around. My statistics are showing that I receive many new readers and subscribers by having the Entrecard banner on my site, so I’d like to make things as easy as possible for them. If you don’t have a banner on your site yet ~ run to get one!

My Link Exchange and Blogroll are now located on one Tab called “Blogroll.” If you’d like to exchange banners or text links with me, that’s where you’ll find all the information.

There’s also “Advertise Here” and “Product and Site Review” tabs for anyone who would like to have me either do a family-friendly product or website/blog review for you.

Always working to spruce things up! Shera did a great job designing my blog site and making all these options so flexible for me!

If you sell on eBay and have an eBay Store, you may or may not be aware that there have been some recent changes to the advertising policy toward About Me pages.

From the current talk about town, on forums and other sites, live links to outside sites are no longer allowed.

For example, I can no longer have a clickable banner pointing to this blog on my eBay About Me page. Nor can I have live links to my Shoppes site, or my direct sales affiliate links, such as Auction Sniper or Sellers Source Book (which, by the way, is a great source for beautiful templates for your auctions!)

So last night I spent quite a bit of time “killing” the live links to my sites, while still keeping the banners up. I had to figure out a way to point my customers to my other sites, and hope that most of them are computer savy enough to know how to find me from the dot com breadcrumbs I’ve left for them! Being a creative WAHM with an ebiz is hard enough already!

My “new” About Me page is here.

If you still have live links on your site, you might want to re-think doing your own About Me page so you’ll be in compliance with eBay’s new policy.

Wow, I recently got approved and signed up for the social networking site SocialSpark!

This is going to be my first paid post about the site!

As all my faithful readers know, I’m trying to retire from my day job. Social Spark from IZEA gives me the opportunity to meet fellow bloggers, and helps to monetize my blog by enabling me to post for honest, reputable companies.

Similar to Pay-Per-Post, once your blog is approved, you can browse the marketplace and apply for any posting opportunities that you may be qualified for. When you submit your blog for approval, you can choose which categories you would like to qualify for to be shown on your blog.

What’s equally nice, is that Social Spark maintains a very high standard of ethics. This means:

* 100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
* 100% Transparency
* 100% Real Opinions
* 100% Search Engine Friendly

Since I am a WAHG with several online ecommerce sites, I try to give tips and promote my businesses through my blog. I’ve become an avid blogger, and the social aspect of Social Spark enables me to visit other bloggers, and leave and receive comments on my blogs and theirs. Here’s my profile that I’ve created so other bloggers can find and network with me.

Lastly, Blogging is becoming mainstream, and more and more people are looking towards bloggers to receive their news and garner new opinions. Advertisers are recognizing the value of this new social media, and taking the opportunity to create buzz for their products. It’s a way for advertisers to reach a whole new target market and generation of potential customers who are familiar with technology.

If you’re a stay-at-home Mom or Dad, Work-at-Home Mommy or Dad, or Baby Boomer such as myself looking for a supplemental source of income, or simply looking to reach out, network and explore new horizons, sign up for Social Spark now! You’ll be pleasantly surprised at all the benefits!

Here’s my disclosure policy that I’ve developed:

This is a note to anyone who wishes to become an Entrecard Advertiser on my Blog. I really enjoy Entrecard and drop every day.

I seem to be having issues/problems with requests to advertise on this blog. I get notification through my email that folks would like to advertise - but when I go to my Dashboard to Approve or Decline ~ there’s nothing there! (Update - I think this is fixed now after all my griping to Entrecard)

I don’t understand what’s going on, and have attempted to contact Entrecard many times about this problem, but they haven’t or won’t respond back to me. So I’m at a loss to know what to do next.

So, if you’ve tried to request an approval to advertise here - it’s not my fault that I’m not getting back to you.

If anyone has any suggestions or comments, please let me know! Hopefully I won’t have to drop this account and start all over again.

Today is PLUGBOARD Day ~ the day I visit all the sites I have plugs on. In an earlier post, I spoke of the benefits of advertising your site through Plugboards. You submit your usually 88 x 31 banner or larger to the boards, and when it falls off rotation, plug again!

Starting out & don’t have a banner yet? Get one at Ready Banner for Free, or a nominal charge for custom work!

I do this once a week, as I maintain a list of all the sites I have plugged my various businesses, eBay Store and Moomette’s Magnificents Olde Town Shoppes site on.

Want a terrific Plugboard that’s hosted by a WAHM site? I know some folks use the free Plugboard hosting sites - I did too for a bit, until I found the site was usually down. But you usually get what you pay for. Then I came across WAHM PLUGBOARD Hosting, and I am sooo happy! For a nominal annual fee, I get all the benefits of a dashboard that works, terrific up-time & support, and the best thing of all…WAHM PLUGBOARD includes

* Installation and hosting of your plugboard
* Your site listed in the plugboard clients list(found on the front page)
* AND your site’s banner will be added to their banner rotation for 3 months at no extra charge - a $10 value!

Check them out!

Such a good deal for such a reasonable annual fee! Come Plug YOUR site on my Plugboard!